Company says it will cooperate with the investigation

WASHINGTON - A federal grand jury in Texas has issued a subpoena for documents, including financial statements and accounting records, from Nortel Networks Corp., the company announced Friday.

The materials sought by the grand jury are part of an ongoing criminal investigation conducted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, according to Nortel, based in Brampton, Ontario. The company plans to fully cooperate with the investigation, according to a Nortel press release.

The subpoena covers documents, including personnel and corporate records, from Jan. 1, 2000, to the present. In April, Nortel announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had launched a formal investigation into the company's restatement of its financial results.

In March, Nortel announced that it would delay filing its annual 2003 financial statements with the SEC and restate some earlier financial results. The same month, the company announced it had placed its chief financial officer and controller on paid leave pending the results of an independent audit.

A spokeswoman for Nortel didn't return phone calls seeking more information on the subpoenas. Asked who was being investigated, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said the U.S. Department of Justice policy is to not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.